A day without a wicket is like a day without sunshine.

(SPOILERS) I can probably count the
musicals I like on the fingers of one hand that has lost several digits in a dreadful
viola accident. How to Succeed in
Business Without Really Trying is one of those, however. A satire very much
of its era (leaving stage remounts the option of ill-advisedly attempting to
update it or looking dubious in intent), infused with commentary on sexism in
the workplace that may now seem outmoded (but, in some respects, has simply
become less overt), David Swift’s adaptation ofFrank Loesser’s 1961 musical, adapted
from Shepherd Mead’s 1952 book, is a dazzling dissection of business politics and
the backstabbing, treacherous, cutthroat art of scaling the corporate ladder. Most
importantly, though, it’s very, very funny and, sealing the deal, the songs are
outstanding: catchy, clever, witty and choreographed (based on the work of the
late, great Bob Fosse) to within an inch of their lives.

Random
Employee: What
the hell is a wicket?

Indeed, if Swift’s direction is adequate
rather than inspired, he nevertheless fully engages the vibrancy and infectious
energy of the stage show. We willingly tag along for the ride with David
Morse’s unscrupulous, cynical yet wholly likeable window cleaner J Pierrepont
Finch (“F-I-N-C-H”) as, upon thieving
the titular book, he uses its advice to get his foot in the door of the
mailroom and doesn’t stop until he’s reached the top of the Worldwide Wicket
Company (itself a dig at manufacturing for its own sake; the details of a
wicket – or widget – are left unrevealed; you could insert anything in its
place, with exactly the same characters dedicated to exactly the same manoeuvring,
wheeling and scheming).

Morse headed up the original Broadway
production (Rudy Vallee also played JB Biggley on both stage and screen: “Damn, damn. Coal-burning dithering, ding ding
ding ding ding ding ding”), and brings the disposition of a competent Jerry
Lewis to Finch, somewhat vital if you’re to sympathise with a character who
does everything he can to step over others on his ascent (revealingly, comments
on the Daniel Radcliffe stage revival opined that he failed to make you like
Finch). I’m chastened to admit, I watched seven season of Mad Men and never even realised he and Bertram Cooper were one and
the same.

The voiceover narration of the book is a
running font of sly and insightful wisdom, from the company to join (“It should be at least large enough so that
nobody quite knows exactly what the other fellow is doing”), to the
pitfalls of the course, and through its matter-of-fact, authoritative
instructiveness provides permission for Finch’s dubious actions. That, and
almost everyone he runs into on his rise is even more thoroughly dubious than he.

Finch begins in the mailroom, where Mr
Twimble (Sammy Smith, who also plays Wally Womper, a traditional double role
for the show) announces his “inborn gift
for mail” and, holding a status of job security now unthinkable, asserts that,
due his certainty about having no point of view or desire to rock the boat, “Whoever the company fires, I will still be
here” (so really it ought to be worrying him that, after 25 years, he gets
promoted to the Shipping Department).

While Twimble’s a loveable old sort, Finch’s
fellow mailroom menial Bud Frump (Anthony “Scooter” Teague), nephew of the boss,
decidedly is not, taking up position as our hero’s young nemesis. He’s gleefully
despicable in sufficiently requisite ways that Finch’s favour in our eyes is
ensured. Twimble announces he will, when promoted, choose his successor “on merit. On merit alone”. “That’s not fair!” exclaims Bud, used to
running to his uncle.

JB
Biggley: Yes,
yes. I know that blood is thicker than water, but Bud Frump is thicker than
anything.

Except Bud isn’t – he’s scheming and
nefarious, and “a damn poop”. In fact, the main difference between him and Finch, besides
not having the book, is that his silver spoon prevents him from being ambitious
enough to go out and achieve. That, and he’s utterly charmless.

The narrative has a number such structural confusions,
such that Finch’s swift rise casts doubt on why others have been so stuck,
given their own get-ahead qualities (Finch is distressed at his lack of
progress after he has been “working here
two full hours” and complains that “I
don’t even have my own office yet” after he has, as Rosemary notes, “only been working here two full days”).
It’s Bud who is bright enough to blackmail his uncle for a promotion as soon as
he spies Hedy LaRue (Maureen Arthur), so why, with such perspicacity, he hasn’t
escaped the mailroom sooner?

It’s as questionable as the circumspect Ovington
(Murray Matheson), who tells Finch “So,
before you try to take over my job, you’re fired”; why is he stuck where he
is, as Head of Advertising, reading the same volume as Finch, particularly
since he’s in a position the book expressly warns against (perhaps he’s just
bought it)?

The tome’s congenial advice not to linger
in the mailroom, that if a gorgeous secretary seems too good to be true it’s
because she is, and most saliently, not to get stuck in advertising (“Get a brilliant idea or steal someone else’s”)
culminates in Finch appropriating the disaster that is Bud’s idea, but which he
brilliantly reworks (“I’m combining greed
with sex”). In so doing, he neatly exposes the unflattering kernel of
advertising, that it’s not about the quality of the idea but the way it is
presented.

This section also features one of the musical’s
most memorable songs in the I Believe in
You reprise, during which, led by Bud, the executives in the washroom
announce they’ve “Got to stop that man,
before he stops me”; Fosse’s choreography here was surely an inspiration
for the Allied Dunbar ad in the ‘00s (“There
may be trouble ahead”).

The picture’s subject matter is as much keyed
into sexual politics of the era as the manoeuvring of business, though (and with
regard to the latter, it has a similar absurdist coherence to that of Joseph
Heller’s take on the military mind-set in
Catch 22). It’s understandable, given the piece’s quality – not least that
of the songs – that revivals are popular, but How to Succeed at Business Without Really Trying is very much a
period piece, and as such the time capsule of the movie may be its ideal,
preserved form; it’s very easy to mistake a playful critique of sexism as guilt
of the same (because it’s certainly far from prurient in exploring the
subject).

The signature song, “A Secretary is Not a Toy”, in which a pre-HR department office employs
choreographed arse-pinching, comes after Gatch’s admonitions that “I’ll have to stop reading Playboy” (on
making a play for Rosemary). So yes, being a workplace sex pest is treated
fairly lightly, but on the other hand it’s far from advocated. Of course, you
also have the depiction of the secretarial pool, studiously obsessed with doing
their hair and makeup, rather than any proper work, after which a coffee break
is announced (“It’s about time!” – the
subsequent song Coffee Break was cut
from the movie, although it appears on the soundtrack album; it isn’t (whisper
it) that good).

Hedy: It is a far, far better
thing I do than I have ever did before.

When Hedy arrives, accompanied by erection
gags (sunglasses flip up, a cigarette lighter erupts with the force of a flame
thrower), she’s the personification of the caricature bubble-brained bimbo in a
movie that’s already making a feature of primary colours and cartoon
characters. Arthur is sublimely empty-headed in the role, but even from her
clueless position she despatches barbs at the less-than-worthy world of the
office (“At least in the Copa when I got
pinched, I got tipped”), and the gag of sending her to dispatch those
impeding Finch’s path (Jeff DeBenning’s Gatch, certainly) is brilliant, up to
the point where every man in the building gives her a wide berth.

Rosemary: Lunch?

Finch: Huh?

Rosemary: I said, ‘Lunch?’

Finch: What about Lunch?

Rosemary: I’d love to.

Michele Lee’s Rosemary presents the
antithesis of the corporate miasma on one hand, in an environment where the
most senior woman is still just a secretary (Miss Jones, an impeccably
thunderous portrait of a harridan with a heart of gold from Ruth Kobart). One
might argue that Rosemary’s prioritisation of what’s really important – life,
love and happiness – gives her a far more admirable footing than one who
strives for an equal footing in the inherently patriarchal corporate world,
such that it’s actually rather disappointing that she chooses to curl up with Business Week at the end of the day.

However, she does seem to exist firmly to support her man, even if she’s the
only one can instantly put Finch (or “Ponty”) off balance. Lee is hugely
winning in the role (although I always preferred Kathryn Reynolds’ Smitty),
although there’s little in the way of character arc for Rosemary; she’s
knowingly maternal and indulgently non-judgemental of “helpless little muffin” Finch’s single-minded quest to reach the
top, and forgives him very quickly when she finds him in a compromising
position with Hedy (of note too is that some of her songs were cut for the
movie, making it even more focused on Finch).

I’ve seen How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying so many times over
the years, it’s probably hard for me to treat it with any kind of objectivity.
I might suggest the Grand Old Ivy
song is a bit of showmanship that, unlike the other tunes, has no narrative
content. But it’s still a bit of fun, particularly as Ponty attempts to keep up
with JB.

The level of wink-wink cleverness
throughout How to Succeed… is
consistently engaging, satisfying and canny, from the lucky coincidences
(Finch, about to be fired by Wally Womper, Chairman of the World Wide Wicket
Company, is reprieved when it is discovered that Wally too started out as
window washer, at which Morse indulges the last in a series of to-camera facial
tics, in emphasis of the “Would you believe it?” fact – he’s also a masterful
close talker throughout) to the not-really sincerity of self-sacrifice (he
passes on the mailroom job, suggesting Bud is the better man, making it look
like magnanimity but only because he has his sights set higher). Meanwhile the
finale, the rousing Brotherhood of Man
is actually a paean to justifying incompetence on the grounds of fellow male
co-identification. Possibly presciently, it also finishes by showing us how to
reach the presidency without really trying.

There have been a fair few solid takes on
the bureaucratic minefields of the workplace over the years, from Office Space, to The Hudsucker Proxy, to the not dissimilarly titled and not
dissimilarly structured Michael J Fox The
Secret of My Success, but none come close to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for sheer wit and
invention, and great songmanship. After seeing it, you too may come to believe
that “A day without a wicket is like a
day without sunshine”.

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